Vashi Bridge

This is one of the masterpiece bridges in Mumbai helping to ease the traffic on the heavily congested roads as well adding more beauty to the architectural structure of the city. The bridge is also known by the name of Thane Creek Bridge as this bridge serves the purpose of connecting the newer part of the city called Navi Mumbai’s Vashi to Mankhurd which is one of the suburban parts of the Mumbai city. Mankhurd – Vashi is the other name of the bridge which is also called the 2nd Thane Creek Bridge as this was the bridge that was built after the first one had to be closed and a second one built in its place.

Geography

This bridge serves as a true entrance to Mumbai and serves the purpose of reduction of traffic in the Southern and Eastern suburbs of Mumbai. The earlier bridge was constructed in 1973 and served the same purpose of connecting the city of Vashi to mainstream Mumbai. Unfortunately, within a couple of years of its opening, the bridge had to be closed to traffic because it saw some cracks which meant the bridge was jeopardizing the safety of the commuters. Therefore, the need to build a more efficient and perfect bridge rose and this was the genesis of the Vashi Bridge that is now seen.

The new bridge that one can see now has taken close to a decade to be completed. The seeds were sown for the building of a new bridge in 1987 and went on to be completed only in 1997. Once this bridge came up, the earlier bridge was shut down and nobody has been allowed to travel on that ever since.

Description of the Bridge

Specifications

The length of the bridge is 1837.5 meters and runs from Mankhurd in Mumbai to Vashi in Navi Mumbai.  In the ten years that was spent in the construction of the bridge, there were a lot of quality assurance and quality control measures that were exercise to ensure that there were no misses. The other primary reason for the extreme care that was taken to ensure the durability of the bridge was that the earlier bridge was rendered useless within a couple of years and the money spent on it went down the drain.  So, all efforts were taken to ensure that the Vashi Bridge sustained the tests of time and high traffic that it was forecasted to carry in and out on a daily basis.

Design Aspects

Since the first bridge saw the corrosion from the sea water weakening it and leading to the condemnation, the engineers who constructed the bridge were very careful in performing the necessary tests with the sea water. When the foundation to the bridge was laid, there were a team of workmen who ensured that the sea water was kept away from the foundation and they used a special kind of submersible pumps to ensure that the sea water was not allowed to enter these foundation sets. A part of the design for the bridge included keeping this foundation dry and not susceptible to corrosion.

The system of creating shutters to mitigate the loss created at the time of the high tides was also planned well in the Vashi Bridge. There were plates that were 6mm in thickness that were painted using coal tar and these were used as shutters. The city saw high tides especially during the monsoons and since this was a very common aspect in the city, the plan and design of the Vashi Bridge captured this as well and built in the necessary protection to sail through these drawbacks.

The new Vashi Bridge, built by the Uttar Pradesh State Bridge Corporation Ltd, has a superb girder system with exemplary girders being used in the bridge that has been a pillar of the Mumbai city right from the day it came into existence until recent times. Each of the carriageways on the bridge has a girder that has been made using beams or cantilevers as they are referred to that are well balanced and uniform. The beams have been actually carried to their current locations and then cast into the bridges giving them the extra strength and durability.

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